Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 27, May 4, 1850 - Various - Страница 6

Charm for the Toothache.—A reverend friend, very conversant in the popular customs and superstitions of Ireland, and who has seen the charm mentioned in pp. 293, 349, and 397, given by a Roman Catholic priest in the north-west of Ireland, has kindly furnished me with the genuine version, and the form in which it was written, which are as follows:—

Charms.—The Evil Eye.—Going one day into a cottage in the village of Catterick, in Yorkshire, I observed hung up behind the door a ponderous necklace of "lucky stones," i.e. stones with a hole through them. On hinting an inquiry as to their use, I found the good lady of the house disposed to shuffle off any explanation; but by a little importunity I discovered that they had the credit of being able to preserve the house and its inhabitants from the baneful influence of the "evil eye." "Why, Nanny," said I, "you surely don't believe in witches now-a-days?" "No! I don't say 'at I do; but certainly i' former times there was wizzards an' buzzards, and them sort o' things." "Well," said I, laughing, "but you surely don't think there are any now?" "No! I don't say at ther' are; but I do believe in a yevil eye." After a little time I extracted from poor Nanny more particulars on the subject, as viz.:—how that there was a woman in the village whom she strongly suspected of being able to look with an evil eye; how, further, a neighbour's daughter, against whom the old lady in question had a grudge owing to some love affair, had suddenly fallen into a sort of pining sickness, of which the doctors could make nothing at all; and how the poor thing fell away without any accountable cause, and finally died, nobody knew why; but how it was her (Nanny's) strong belief that she had pined away in consequence of a glance from the evil eye. Finally, I got from her an account of how any one who chose could themselves obtain the power of the evil eye, and the receipt was, as nearly as I can recollect, as follows:—

"Ye gang out ov' a night—ivery night, while ye find nine toads—an' when ye've gitten t' nine toads, ye hang 'em up ov' a string, an' ye make a hole and buries t' toads i't hole—and as 't toads pines away, so 't person pines away 'at you've looked upon wiv a yevil eye, an' they pine and pine away while they die, without ony disease at all!"

I do not know if this is the orthodox creed respecting the mode of gaining the power of the evil eye, but it is at all events a genuine piece of Folk Lore.

The above will corroborate an old story rife in Yorkshire, of an ignorant person, who, being asked if he ever said his prayers, repeated as follows:—

Ecclesfield, April 24. 1850.

Charms.—I beg to represent to the correspondents of the "NOTES AND QUERIES," especially to the clergy and medical men resident in the country, that notices of the superstitious practices still prevalent, or recently prevalent, in different parts of the kingdom, for the cure of diseases, are highly instructive and even valuable, on many accounts. Independently of their archæological interest as illustrations of the mode of thinking and acting of past times, they become really valuable to the philosophical physician, as throwing light on the natural history of diseases. The prescribers and practisers of such "charms," as well as the lookers-on, have all unquestionable evidence of the efficacy of the prescriptions, in a great many cases: that is to say, the diseases for which the charms are prescribed are cured; and, according to the mode of reasoning prevalent with prescribers, orthodox and heterodox, they must be cured by them,—post hoc ergo propter hoc. Unhappily for the scientific study of diseases, the universal interference of ART in an active form renders it difficult to meet with pure specimens of corporeal maladies; and, consequently, it is often difficult to say whether it is nature or art that must be credited for the event. This is a positive misfortune, in a scientific point of view. Now, as there can be no question as to the non-efficiency of charms in a material or physical point of view (their action through the imagination is a distinct and important subject of inquiry), it follows that every disease getting well in the practice of the charmer, is curable and cured by Nature. A faithful list of such cases could not fail to be most useful to the scientific inquirer, and to the progress of truth; and it is therefore that I am desirous of calling the attention of your correspondents to the subject. As a general rule, it will be found that the diseases in which charms have obtained most fame as curative are those of long duration, not dangerous, yet not at all, or very slightly, benefited by ordinary medicines. In such cases, of course, there is not room for the display of an imaginary agency:—"For," as Crabbe says,—and I hope your medical readers will pardon the irreverence—

The notice in your last Number respecting the cure of hooping-cough, is a capital example of what has just been stated; and I doubt not but many of your correspondents could supply numerous prescriptions equally scientific and equally effective. On a future occasion, I will myself furnish you with some; but as I have already trespassed so far on your space, I will conclude by naming a few diseases in which the charmers may be expected to charm most wisely and well. They will all be found to come within the category of the diseases characterised above:—Epilepsy, St. Vitus's Dance (Chorea), Hysteria, Toothache, Warts, Ague, Mild Skin-diseases, Tic Douloureux, Jaundice, Asthma, Bleeding from the Nose, St. Anthony's Fire or The Rose (Erysipelas), King's Evil (Scrofula), Mumps, Rheutmatic Pains, &c., &c.

EMDEE.

April 25. 1850.

Roasted Mouse.—I have often heard my father say, that when he had the measles, his nurse gave him a roasted mouse to cure him.

SCOTUS.